Waste trafficking is the fourth largest international business after drugs, weapons and human beings. An interview with the president of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into illegal activities connected to the waste cycle.
He is the president of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into illegal activities connected to the waste cycle and related environmental crimes. For two terms in parliament, Stefano Vignaroli has been working on the phenomenon of fires at waste treatment and storage facilities — a full-blown emergency that the Movimento 5 Stelle MP urges us to analyse not as a list of isolated incidents, but as a reflection of a genuine structural crisis in the system. One caused by a shortage of facilities, the Chinese import ban and a secondary raw materials market that has yet to take off.
Around 300 fires since 2014 to date, more than 80 a year, with 50 per cent concentrated in northern Italy: is a waste war under way in our country?
Rather than a war, I would speak of a structural crisis in the waste management system, of which the fires are the most visible symptom alongside the growing saturation of residual waste disposal facilities. While on one hand the volume of separately collected waste is rising, on the other commercial outlets have narrowed, with the result that storage at facilities is at the limit and criminal operators are devising shortcuts.
Is this a long list of individual episodes, or a complex phenomenon that must be treated as such?
Fires are an overall phenomenon, albeit with various facets and differences, and must be treated as such. It is no coincidence that the Commission devoted a report to the subject as far back as the previous parliament, and is continuing its investigative work.
In the face of these incidents, has the investigative and judicial response been effective?
It was not always immediately understood that many of the fires at waste treatment and storage facilities represented an overall phenomenon. As a result, the investigative and judicial response — already no simple matter in itself — was neither swift nor uniform across the country. On the judicial front, as the Commission's report on the period 2014–17 had highlighted, results had been of little significance: around half of the events had given rise to criminal proceedings against persons unknown, who remained unknown in almost all cases right through to the archiving of the case. Criminal prosecution had been initiated in 13 per cent of cases, but in only five of them had proceedings been brought for the offence of arson, whether wilful or negligent, while in the other cases the fire had been an occasion to establish other environmental crimes arising from irregularities in the management of the facilities. More recently there have been some important results: I am thinking of the operations by the Dda of Milan, which led to arrests over the fires at Corteolona, in the province of Pavia, and at via Chiasserini, in the Lombard capital.
What direction is the Commission's work taking?
As I mentioned earlier, the Commission in the previous parliament drew up a report on fires, which still stands as a fixed point of reference in a scenario as complex and multifaceted as this one. The investigative work is continuing, both through analysis of judicial documents and through hearings.
Is the failure to properly close the waste cycle at the root of most of the fires? How significant has the Chinese ban on importing waste from abroad — in particular plastic — been?
Judicial investigations are under way into most of the fires to establish their causes. In general, in my view the Chinese ban has certainly played a significant role. It is not, however, the only factor to take into account. The fires phenomenon had, in fact, already taken on a certain scale before the closure of China's borders. Also weighing on the situation in recent years have been the increase in waste production — both municipal and special — and the growth of separate collection without a corresponding creation of recycling facilities or a market capable of valorising secondary raw materials. Consider the fact that the Cam — the minimum environmental criteria for public procurement, which are a flagship of Italy at international level and could open the public purchasing market to goods made from regenerated materials — are in reality largely unenforced. This shortage of industrial and commercial outlets, combined with an increase in volumes to be managed, has thrown the system into crisis.
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There is therefore a correlation between the fires and the shortage of treatment facilities.
I would not reduce it all to a generic lack of facilities — the situation is more complex. First of all, one must consider what type of facilities we are talking about: material recovery facilities, for example, are lacking. An absence also caused by the fact that there is no adequate industrial supply chain, because today all the incentives are weighted towards incineration. The latter, however, besides ranking at the bottom of the European waste hierarchy — after reduction, reuse and recycling — brings with it significant environmental and social drawbacks. Still referring to the European hierarchy, one must not forget that prevention should come first, but unfortunately reduction and redesign are virtuous actions that suit nobody, because in practice they reduce the revenues of those who produce those goods and of those who then have to dispose of them. On the recycling front, there is also the thorny issue of so-called "end of waste" measures, which have a lengthy approval process. On the measures that determine the end of waste status, the right balance must be found: they must facilitate virtuous recycling without however becoming a loophole for businesses to avoid disposal costs. Every business would like an "end of waste" classification for its waste, even in questionable cases.
Some argue that the environmental crimes law has also played a role, since fires have become an easy solution compared to what was once resolved through illegal disposal. What is your view?
The environmental crimes law, which we were proud to pass in Parliament in the previous term, is an important instrument for combating the illegal management of waste. I rule out that it has facilitated the emergence of unlawful conduct such as deliberate arson.
Is the fact that the highest number of fires is recorded in the north solely due to the greater number of facilities there, or does it in some way reflect a new "geography" compared to the emergencies that in the past affected the southern regions?
According to the findings of the Commission's report published at the beginning of 2018, almost half of fires are concentrated in the north. Whereas in the past industrial and residual waste used to travel from north to south, where it was disposed of illegally, today the supply chains are far more articulated across the national territory. The greater presence of facilities and storage sites has undoubtedly meant that waste flows are predominantly directed northwards. Alongside lawful processing, however, illegal management also finds space in the northern regions, as demonstrated by various judicial investigations and police operations in recent years into the storage of waste in abandoned warehouses, ready to be set alight, or into its illegal disposal in certain incinerators in northern Italy.
Is it possible to quantify the illicit profits hidden behind illegal waste trafficking?
Enormous sums of money circulate around waste management, attracting both companies operating irregularly and organised crime. One need only consider that, as Guardia di Finanza commander Giuseppe Arbore stated during a hearing before the Commission, waste trafficking is the fourth largest international business after drugs, weapons and human beings.
